My home network is a DSL dynamic IP setup with a gateway router that uses NAT to allow multiple hosts on the one dynamic IP.

What I want to be able to do is to ssh/rdesktop from my laptop into my desktop. I can remote in just fine when the laptop is on that network, but I want to be able to do so when I'm at the University. I obviously can't just use the private IP address when I'm not in the network, but am uncertain of how I can set this up.

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And the WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us. (John 1:14)

I want to control the Desktop from the Laptop. Besides just raw running, I'd like to be able to tunnel audio fom the Desktop to the Laptop, and if possible be able to open a local file from the remote machine -- particular be able to load a CD/DVD on the Laptop and be able to read it on the Desktop.

I can ssh into the Desktop and I can even run X programs through ssh. I can't figure out how to pipe sound or open local files with remote programs.

__________________
And the WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us. (John 1:14)

Okay, your use of "rsdesktop" threw me for a loop, as rdesktop is only used for connecting to Windows stations, and works really well in conjunction with "ssh -L".

But, to connect to a Unix station, and to run X11 apps remotely, that's a totally different scenario.

Two options, depending on how much of the Slackware desktop screen you want to see:
1. ssh -X to the Slackware box. Then run X11 programs from the command-line, and they'll appear on your local screen (laptop). However, as the apps are actually running on the Slackware box, they will only have access to the files on the Slackware box.

2. Install and configure x11vnc on the Slackware box. Use that as the main X server. Then use ssh -X to the Slackware box. Run "vncviewer localhost" and your Slackware desktop will appear on your laptop. However, again, as the apps are running on the desktop, you can only access files on the desktop. (This is the setup we use in our schools, so that teachers/IT staff can connect to any station for troubleshooting and monitoring.)

Okay, your use of "rsdesktop" threw me for a loop, as rdesktop is only used for connecting to Windows stations, and works really well in conjunction with "ssh -L".

Sorry. Until last night, I really thought rdesktop worked for logging into Linux/Unix boxes. In retrospect, I can see that I've only used rdesktop for logging into Windows servers and hosts and VNC once or twice with Ubuntu. And I made a faulty assumption.

Quote:

Originally Posted by phoenix

Two options, depending on how much of the Slackware desktop screen you want to see:
1. ssh -X to the Slackware box. Then run X11 programs from the command-line, and they'll appear on your local screen (laptop). However, as the apps are actually running on the Slackware box, they will only have access to the files on the Slackware box.

I've gotten this far. It works for most of what I need. I can always use scp or something similar to upload and download files as needed -- it's just an extra step.

Quote:

Originally Posted by phoenix

2. Install and configure x11vnc on the Slackware box. Use that as the main X server. Then use ssh -X to the Slackware box. Run "vncviewer localhost" and your Slackware desktop will appear on your laptop. However, again, as the apps are running on the desktop, you can only access files on the desktop. (This is the setup we use in our schools, so that teachers/IT staff can connect to any station for troubleshooting and monitoring.)

I don't think I need a full fledge desktop in this scenario. I did, however, make a half-hearted attempt to configure TightVNC last night -- without success (not that I'm surprised given my lack of effort in this regard).

I'm not sure what I'll do with printing. Setting up printing always seems to be last on my list.

For sound, I can listen to mp3 files from the remote host locally. If I really wanted to, I could setup some sort of streaming audio server, too. But, that's not what I'm looking for.

Here is the scenario: I ssh -X into the desktop. I open up xine on the desktop to view a video displayed on the laptop (file/disc is stored on desktop). The video comes through, but the sound doesn't. That video makes it and sound doesn't seem illogical to me, but it is the situation. I can't figure how or even if I can get the sound to make the journey?

Two more questions:

1) If I ssh -X into the desktop and open up firefox and go to a secure site, will that be as secure as if I browsed from the desktop without the ssh connection (as if I'm sitting there)? I think I know the answer, but I want to verify.

2) Some mentioned on a site I was looking at that they update (I think he said with cron) a website every 30 minutes with the current IP address. How could I do that with a cron job (or something comparable) so that the IP address of the DSL modem will update a webpage so that I can know the address to ssh to no matter where I am?

__________________
And the WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us. (John 1:14)

The video comes through, but the sound doesn't. That video makes it and sound doesn't seem illogical to me, but it is the situation. I can't figure how or even if I can get the sound to make the journey?

I may be wrong, but I think I'm right.... so anyone feel free to correct me if it's the latter, rather then the former.

If you recall whatever you should have read about how the X Windows System works, you have an X Server that handles the display of X Clients on a given $DISPLAY. When my laptops keyboard went belly up, I tried virtually everything :\. One task was hooking up my laptop, and tunneling X over SSH to an X Server running on the Windows machine. Because the server was on the Windows machine, the Windows machine needs the graphics card - because all of the rendering is done on the boxen with the X Server running (or $DISPLAY, if you want to think of it that way, but that wouldn't be true). Likewise the programs are actually being executed from the remote host, where they are installed; in my case it was on the FreeBSD machine. I don't know the protocol very well (and am no Jamie Zawinski either!), but look at it this way:

X is about graphics for the most part.

Video requires rendering images on the users $DISPLAY by the X Server managing that $DISPLAY, and doing it at a suitable "frame rate".

Sound is an Operating System specific feature and has nothing to do with graphics.

If the machine doing the graphics rendering needs the graphics card, wouldn't it make sense if the machine doing the audio playback needed the sound card?

At least, that is as much as I can offer without more time to learn and cash for hardware. So the only way around it is a network mount of the files and running a program locally to play it, afaik.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMJ_coder

2) Some mentioned on a site I was looking at that they update (I think he said with cron) a website every 30 minutes with the current IP address. How could I do that with a cron job (or something comparable) so that the IP address of the DSL modem will update a webpage so that I can know the address to ssh to no matter where I am?

That I can't really help with outside of taking a guess, that you mean go to website, get IP that has been updated via cron; then feed that into SSH (sounds like a job for scripting). On related notes, you might also like to take a look at something like: http://www.dyndns.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_DNS

I may be wrong, but I think I'm right.... so anyone feel free to correct me if it's the latter, rather then the former.

If you recall whatever you should have read about how the X Windows System works, you have an X Server that handles the display of X Clients on a given $DISPLAY. When my laptops keyboard went belly up, I tried virtually everything :\. One task was hooking up my laptop, and tunneling X over SSH to an X Server running on the Windows machine. Because the server was on the Windows machine, the Windows machine needs the graphics card - because all of the rendering is done on the boxen with the X Server running (or $DISPLAY, if you want to think of it that way, but that wouldn't be true). Likewise the programs are actually being executed from the remote host, where they are installed; in my case it was on the FreeBSD machine. I don't know the protocol very well (and am no Jamie Zawinski either!), but look at it this way:

X is about graphics for the most part.

Video requires rendering images on the users $DISPLAY by the X Server managing that $DISPLAY, and doing it at a suitable "frame rate".

Sound is an Operating System specific feature and has nothing to do with graphics.

If the machine doing the graphics rendering needs the graphics card, wouldn't it make sense if the machine doing the audio playback needed the sound card?

At least, that is as much as I can offer without more time to learn and cash for hardware. So the only way around it is a network mount of the files and running a program locally to play it, afaik.

I have poured over the internet trying to find solutions. The basic answer is that ssh doesn't forward sound. But, you can set up a client/server scenario and tunnel that through ssh for sound. But, there is no BSD UNIX solution to this that I found. It is all for Windows<->Linux and Linux<->Linux -- i.e., using Jack, ESD, etc.

I realize that X and sound are two different subsystems, but my objection is if you can forward one, why cannot you forward the other? (this is a question/complaint directed toward the ssh people and not you guys)

__________________
And the WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us. (John 1:14)

That I can't really help with outside of taking a guess, that you mean go to website, get IP that has been updated via cron; then feed that into SSH (sounds like a job for scripting). On related notes, you might also like to take a look at something like: http://www.dyndns.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_DNS

Yes, that's about it. Let's forget the part of getting the updated IP off the web and plugging it into SSH for now (that I can pretty much handle).

I'm looking for how to use a cron job to figure out the current IP address, and then update say a html link on a webpage.

I don't think that dynamic DNS would work because there is no domain name associated with it.

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And the WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us. (John 1:14)

I don't think that dynamic DNS would work because there is no domain name associated with it.

It's true the hostname supplied by the ISP (if they do (which they should)) will be as dynamic as the IP address. However, that doesn't matter as you don't need to use it. With DynDNS (and the like) you can pick your own static hostname (i.e., the name doesn't change). Something like myhostname.dyndns.org . Then the IP address associated with this name is changed dynamically by you. So when you look up that hostname you'll get the current IP that you've assigned to it.

E.g., you could run a cron job on the machine in question to check its own IP every 10 minutes, say, and if it has changed since last time, then it runs a program to update the IP address that is associated with myhostname.dyndns.org on the DynDNS servers.

@JMJ, X was based originally for networked graphics.. multiple X terminals (dedicated hardware) would connect to a fast Unix server.

Sound was never in the equation.. and historically, there have been several sound API's for Unix systems, Sun Audio and OSS being the most popular of coarse. (Neither are network aware..)

Due to the nature of sound.. it's been more of a "localized" thing, traditionally not networked.. but it has been done.

You already mentioned the programs by name.. ESD(Esound) and Jack both support this.

I can understand the historical why not, I'm just lamenting the why not (I'll get over it ). Again the complain isn't directed to anyone here (unless you are part of the OpenSSH development team! )

Quote:

Originally Posted by BSDfan666

A little off topic.. but is that religious quotation really necessary in your signature? in red? it's most surely going to offend someone.

It certainly isn't meant to offend. The quote is from the troparion for Christmas day according to the Byantine rite and I switched from the kontakion because it has more to do with the Magi, which was celebrated on January 6. It is in red because it is Christmas (red is a Christmas color). In Advent, the signature was in purple. I just can't help but to proclaim the glorious message.

It is a little off-topic, but if you want to start a new thread I'd be happy to continue discussion.

__________________
And the WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us. (John 1:14)

I've gotten this far. It works for most of what I need. I can always use scp or something similar to upload and download files as needed -- it's just an extra step.

Stupid router!!! I wish they would stop making such idiotic "consumer" electronic products. I tried to scp, but since it establishes a connection on both ends, the router wouldn't allow it -- only one computer per port. It cannot be changed. This thing has to have definitely come out of Redmond.

I'm going to have to change port assignments for my ssh connections (not a bad security step anyways). At least the stupid router allows me to custom create a forward definition, so at least I can create another ssh definition to use a different port.

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And the WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us. (John 1:14)

Have a look at NAS, the Network Audio Server. It does for sound what X does for video. The only caveat is that the application has to be NAS-aware. It's available in the ports tree (audio/nas), and most of the more popular apps support it. Even artsd, for KDE3, supports NAS. You may need to reinstall your audio/video apps to enable NAS support.

Have a look at NAS, the Network Audio Server. It does for sound what X does for video. The only caveat is that the application has to be NAS-aware. It's available in the ports tree (audio/nas), and most of the more popular apps support it. Even artsd, for KDE3, supports NAS. You may need to reinstall your audio/video apps to enable NAS support.